Despite the downturn the geolocation space is still active. This year’s Where 2.0 conference will be highlighting the companies, technologies and people that make the industry go. Where 2.0 is happening in San Jose at the Fairmount Hotel from 5/19-21(the first day is workshops; the next two are all mainstage talks). Early registration ends this Tuesday, 4/13. You can get an extra 25% off for being a Radar reader with this code: whr09rdr.
The schedule for the show is almost full. The hottest topic this year is location-aware apps, services and data. It’s been almost a full-year since the iPhone enabled third-party apps to use our location; we’re going to hear from startups, researchers and the platform providers.
Two of our keynoters will dive into what can and should be done with location data. MIT Professor Sandy Pentland, the fellow responsible for coining the term Reality Mining and author of Honest Signals, will discuss his research on mining company communication patterns and his location data ownership initiatives. Microsoft Researcher Eric Horvitz has been gathering location data from volunteers for over 5 years. Using this data he has created virtual assistants, life stream recorders and other forward looking applications for our historical location data.
Many of the location-aware startups are operating in the mobile space. Mobile social networks are facing an increasingly crowded market — one that was just entered by Google’s Latitude and still waiting entries from both Facebook and Nokia. We’ll hear from the founders of Foursquare and Brightkite as well as Pelago (Radar post) how they are going to grow in this market.
Your location data is going to become increasingly valuable. Startup Sense Networks will discuss their business of of extracting insights from large amounts of location data. I am sure Nokia’s Michael Halbherr will touch on the wealth of data they have from acquisitions like NAVTEQ and Plazes and how they will be supplemented through Nokia’s devices. Perry Evans will discuss the nascent ad market for location-based services.
Even though the iPhone has made finding a user’s popular that doesn’t mean it’s become easy or even possible on other devices. There will be two developer workshops dedicated to the topic — one for finding users on the web and another for native mobile applications.
The day after Where 2.0 ends there will be the third edition of WhereCamp where the conversation will continue.